Shopping

The La Cañada Junior Woman's Club is encouraging residents to shop local for their holiday gifts. The club is hosting a “shopping crawl” on Friday, Nov. 15. Shops along Foothill Boulevard will donate 20% of their sales to the club. The fundraiser will support the Ronald McDonald House and Haven House. Participating shops include The shops are located between the 1300 to 1400 block of Foothill.

We'd all been told it could happen, that members of the very rarest of species, pedestrianus lacanadanus, could make regular appearances on Foothill Boulevard. But I was chief among the doubters. Oh, sure, we'd see one or two bipeds along the main drag every now and again, but they were usually attached to skateboards. Or, they were the church-going variety, dashing from the sidewalk in front of La Cañada Presbyterian across the street to the Plaza shopping center, where they'd left their cars for the duration of a Sunday service.

LCF Tournament of Roses Association has a new fundraising venue: Amazon.com. The computer user just signs on to Amazon.com through LCFTRA's website at http://www.lcftra.org , and LCFTRA will receive a "referral fee" for any purchases made. The process is simple. Log on to http://www.lcftra.org and you will see "In Association with Amazon.com Click to Enter." A click will automatically take you to the Amazon home page where your shopping adventure can proceed as usual.

Learn about the past of your favorite shopping area on the Montrose Walking Tour on Saturday, Dec. 10 at 11 a.m. John Drayman will narrate as we stroll by the historic shops along Honolulu. John is the unofficial historian for Montrose and gives a fascinating and humorous look at the evolution of the quaint little town that has become one of the jewels of the Crescenta Valley. We'll meet in front of White's Art Gallery at 2414 Honolulu Ave. and take an easy, two-block walk ending at the new restaurant area of the 2200 block (just in time for lunch)

The gift of strong sales came to La Cañada Flintridge's business community this holiday season, as several local businesses reported sales that matched or exceeded last year's. While lines testified to customers from across the Southland being drawn to Sport Chalet, other local businesses reported that they were seeing residents of La Cañada and nearby cities come in to do their shopping close to home. Peter Wannier, who co-owns Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse with his wife Lenora, said that this year's sales were an improvement on last year's.

Rotary Club Cruises Baja Eleven representatives of the Rotary Club of La Cañada Flintridge journeyed to Ensenada the weekend of April 25-28. Those taking the trip were: Robert Ippolito and Lynn Chen , John and Jo Loomis , Bill Patterson , Erwin and Robyn Petschauer, Jim and Jeanne Wallace , and Dr . Leland and Sharon Watkins . John Loomis is president of the local Rotary Club. They boarded the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines ship The Monarch of the Seas in San Pedro and sailed down to Ensenada Friday night, arriving at 8 a.m. Saturday.

Q. The holidays are coming and instead of feeling cheer, I feel exhausted and overwhelmed with a sense of dread. Can you give me some insight? It's called the Holiday Blues, and you're not alone. The condition can flow from many roots, with some of the more common ones being fatigue, unrealistic expectations, financial issues, and maybe the inability to be with loved ones. Then there's shopping, parties and maybe houseguests for the holidays. With all that, many can develop symptoms like headaches, drinking and eating too much, insomnia, anxiety and guilt.

I often hear people bemoan the fact that they miss their independence, or claim that they refuse to give up their independence, no matter what. It makes me wonder how we all define ?independence.? It doesn?t necessarily mean doing everything yourself. Let?s roll back the clock a few years, and look at how you have made changes in your life as time has gone by. Have you hired a gardenerto help with your yard work even though you might still enjoy going outside and puttering around in the garden?

But for As people trundle home from shopping with trees lashed to the tops of their cars and a trunk full of gifts, there are those among us who are less fortunate. I happened to meet such a woman early one morning last week while driving through a back alley short-cut. She had shoulder length white hair, wore a heavy blue parka and sat on the curb smoking. Her expression seemed to indicate she had no idea where she was or how she'd gotten there, and was mulling over her options.

Plaza De La Cañada, a neighborhood shopping center in La Cañada Flintridge, has sold for $35.9 million , the Los Angeles Times reports. The 1960s-era shopping center on Foothill Boulevard will be anchored by a Gelson's Market that is set to open early next year. Gelson's will replace Vons as the main anchor of the mall. Retail Opportunity Investments Corp., a San Diego real estate investment trust, bought the mall from Vons Cos., real estate brokerage Cassidy Turley said.

For those of us who look forward to Thanksgiving, it's hard to imagine the appeal of a $99 big-screen TV or an extreme discount on socks and underwear, but Black Friday has now moved to Thanksgiving Day and shoppers are already camped out at box stores, waiting for Thanksgiving sales. Shame on the chief executives of these chains: Best Buy, Toys R Us, Macy's, Target, Walmart, Kmart, Old Navy, Staples, Sears, JCPenney, Michael's and Kohl's. Shame on you for competing with our nation's holiday by starting your Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday was bad enough, but now the irony-impaired marketing teams at Best Buy will sell you a nice TV so you can watch “Modern Family.” At Macy's, there's deep-discounted kitchenware, essential to creating a festive family atmosphere on Dec. 25, unless you are camped out that day waiting for the next sale, while my erstwhile favorite store, Target, will sell you a copy of “The Romney Family Table: Sharing Home-Cooked Recipes & Favorite Traditions.” That's why I was happy to see one of our son's U.S. Naval Academy classmates featured on an American Express ad and on the Today show.

The La Cañada Junior Woman's Club is encouraging residents to shop local for their holiday gifts. The club is hosting a “shopping crawl” on Friday, Nov. 15. Shops along Foothill Boulevard will donate 20% of their sales to the club. The fundraiser will support the Ronald McDonald House and Haven House. Participating shops include The shops are located between the 1300 to 1400 block of Foothill.

Gelson's plans to take over a Vons grocery store in La Cañada Flintridge in the first quarter of next year, the company said Wednesday. The premium supermarket chain is slated to take possession of the site on Foothill Boulevard in December, said Yvonne Manganaro, director of marketing for Gelson's. Fred Buss, a senior planner for La Cañada Flintridge, on Tuesday said the company had not approached the city yet regarding the plan. The move comes after Gelson's closed their Pasadena location in July.

It's a Saturday afternoon at Foothill Records and the regular clientele is starting to trickle in: local music enthusiasts looking for a rare used vinyl record, or maybe even a CD. Carol Schofield sits in a chair behind the register, shouting out to customers to ask how they're doing. Most seem to know what they're looking for, and one regular informs her that he's going to look in the back room of the store. A young man drops a Doors LP onto the countertop and waits for her to inspect it. Price labels are absent from the majority of the stock, and Schofield typically makes a deal with the customer once they bring their purchases to the front.

On Saturday afternoon, as customers inside La Cañada's Sport Chalet shopped for shoes, attire and sporting goods, a small group of women were breathing underwater for the very first time. They knelt at the bottom of the store's instruction pool, communicating silently with hand signals as enormous bubbles clamored upward and burst into the hot summer air. After a few laps around the bottom, the three students and instructor rose to the surface. PHOTOS: Scuba lessons for women at Sport Chalet “That was so much fun,” said La Cañada resident Taylor Carbonetti, taking off her swim mask.

A long-running flower shop in the city is looking to move back to Foothill Boulevard, where the business first opened in 1959. Edward Eiji Tomita and Hannah Tomita ran Eiji's Florist for many years on Foothill in a strip mall where the Flintridge Proper restaurant stands today. After a fire caused damage to the property in the 1980s, the Tomitas moved to their current location on 4534 Rinetti Lane. Their daughter, Lisa, now runs the shop. PHOTOS: Eiji's moving sale in La Cañada In an effort to increase foot traffic, the shop will move by June 30 to a more prominent location in the downtown area, said Jorell Esteban, a manager at Eiji's.

A new store catering to the owners of cats and dogs has opened up on Foothill Boulevard. Button Nose officially opened last week, marking the first ribbon-cutting of the year for the La Cañada Flintridge Chamber of Commerce and Community Assn. Christina Lee owns the shop at 838 Foothill Blvd. Lee sells various items, from toys to rhinestone collars and healthy pet food. -- Follow Tiffany Kelly on Google+ and on Twitter @LATiffanyKelly .

“We're safe on Mars.” La Cañada Flintridge's connection to the heavens made for a sensational story in 2012, as Jet Propulsion Laboratory safely landed the NASA rover Curiosity on the Red Planet. JPL engineer Al Chen made the announcement to hollers and high-fives at JPL's Mission Control Center at 10:32 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 5. The landing featured new technology including a parachute to slow the rover from 13,000 mph and a “sky crane” suspended in the Martian air to ease the impact of the craft's touchdown in the Gale Crater.

Fiona Bayliss' Montrose boutique is stuffed with holiday items, antiques and hard-to-find pieces of furniture, but for the first time in decades Bayliss is not there to sell them. On Nov. 29, Bayliss died in her sleep at her La Crescenta home, according to friends. The longtime Montrose shop owner was 93. “There isn't anything negative to say about her,” said Larry Moss, a friend of Bayliss' for 50 years. “She was a very positive, caring, generous person who was full of life.